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<\/a>Naoya Inoue KO\u2019d Juan Carlos Payano after only one minute and ten seconds of the first round, and Kiryl Relikh went through twelve tough rounds against Eduard Troyanovsky to score a unanimous win in Sunday\u2019s Ali Trophy Quarter-Finals at the Yokohama Arena, Yokohama.<\/p>\n\u201cI am going for the KO, I am going to finish him,\u201d said Inoue to WBSS\u2019s reporter in Yokohama shortly before entering a sold-out arena modeled after famous Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
Flash forward to a stunning, lighting-fast left-right combo from the ‘The Monster’ that floored Payano and sent shockwaves throughout the world of boxing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am normally not a person who brags, but I said that I went for the KO to put myself under maximum pressure,\u201d said Inoue.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old local hero, Inoue (17-0, 15 KOs) made the first defense of the WBA \u2018Regular\u2019 world bantamweight title he won by stopping Britain’s Jamie McDonnell in the first round of his previous fight.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old Payano (20-2, 9 KOs) from the Dominican Republic, a former bantamweight world champion, was stopped for the first time since making his debut eight years ago.<\/p>\n
In the semi-final, Inoue will face the winner of the Emmanuel Rodriguez vs Jason Moloney quarter-final that takes place on October 20 in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the evening, all three judges scored the opening super-lightweight quarter-final of Season II 115-113 in favour of Belarus\u2019 Kiryl Relikh (23-2, 19 KOs) in his clash with Russia\u2019s Eduard Troyanovsky.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough fight,\u201d said 29-year-old Relikh who also defended his WBA World Super-Lightweight Championship for the first time. \u201cI went for the KO so I am not happy with my performance. I saw that I hurt him, but I was surprised I couldn\u2019t finish him.\u201d<\/p>\n
38-year-old Troyanovsky (29-2, 24 KO\u2019s) showed class in the time of the defeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to congratulate Kiryl,\u201d said Troyanovsky. \u201cIt was an emotional fight, my first 12 rounder, and I want to say thanks to Kiryl for a good fight. I did my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relikh will take on either Puerto Rico\u2019s Manny Rodriguez or Australia\u2019s Jason Moloney in the semi-finals. Rodriguez vs Moloney will also be settled on October 20 in Orlando.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[AdSense-A] Naoya Inoue KO\u2019d Juan Carlos Payano after only one minute and ten seconds of the first round, and Kiryl Relikh went through twelve tough rounds against Eduard Troyanovsky to score a unanimous win in Sunday\u2019s Ali Trophy Quarter-Finals at the Yokohama Arena, Yokohama. \u201cI am going for the KO, I am going to finish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19009],"class_list":["post-75612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-naoya-inoue-kiryl-relikh-advance-to-semi-finals-after-monster-season-ii-opener-boxing-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75612"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}